


A Healthy Alternative

by Gold_Rain



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: As far as I’m concerned this is canon, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Gen, Iroh enjoys it way too much, I’m sorry I’m really tired, Katara defeated Azula and now Azula has a crush, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), No relationship is there for her, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, also Zuko and Azula just troll Ozai, but she's just really gay, idk this is just pure crack man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gold_Rain/pseuds/Gold_Rain
Summary: Zuko: torture is wrongZuko: hOwEvEr,,,
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula/Katara (Avatar), But it’s minor ok
Comments: 6
Kudos: 243





	A Healthy Alternative

It’s been two years since the Avatar stole her father’s bending, and Azula is still learning how to accept the new world she is faced with. 

  
The new world where Ozai is a monster with no bending. A new world where her brother is Firelord and he still wants her around. 

  
“Why?” Is what she had asked. She knew he could understand all she was asking, so she didn’t embarrass herself by attempting to elaborate. Why do you keep me around? Why don’t you hate me? Why do you still love me?

  
He’d looked at her, puzzled and amused, and she had to force herself not to bristle. “Because you’re my sister, Azula, and I know you need me.”

  
It hurt her pride to do so, but she stayed quiet. She couldn’t refute his words. She knew they were true. But it was never easy for Azula, to admit that she needed someone else.

  
Zuko was Firelord, so he couldn’t always visit her in the institution. He had a duty to the people of the Fire Nation. Azula understood that. She did. But she couldn’t help the empty feeling she got when she was alone, or the fact that when Zuko visited her she felt the closest to okay she’d ever felt.

  
Soon, however, Azula was stable enough to be allowed out of the institution. There were still many people who wanted her to be locked up, and she couldn’t even blame them, but Zuko wouldn’t have it.

  
Her uncle had watched on with wary eyes as Azula came home, escorted by guards that she knew weren’t really for her safety at all. His stare softened minutely when she reached her brother and took his arm in hers.

  
(She knew it was a pathetic thing to do, but Azula had been in a straight jacket for a long time, helpless and insane, and she was so past having dignity.)

  
(At least Zuko didn’t confront her on it. She wouldn’t have known what to say.)

  
It had been two years, and Azula finally felt like the ground beneath her feet was solid. She was reinstated as a princess of the Fire Nation and she had never felt more _okay_.

  
A couple years ago she would’ve seen it as a weakness to look to her brother for direction, or to support him when the crown was too heavy to carry alone. She would’ve been disgusted by how far she’d fallen. She would’ve ached to challenge him and take her brother’s crown for herself.

  
Now all Azula really wanted was to rest...

  
...but she also wanted to torture her father for all he’d done to her. Take a wild guess about which one she wasn’t allowed to do.

  
“Torture is wrong.” Zuko stated again, stubbornly. “Even though he does suck.”

  
“He burned off half your face and he twisted my mind to bend to his every whim. He does a bit more than ‘suck.’”

  
“Torture is wrong.” He reiterated, this time with considerably less surety.

  
“I am perfectly sound of mind and capable of delivering the appropriate _justice—you_ just don’t want Aang to be disappointed in you.”

  
“Hey,” he defended, flushing, “he looks like a kicked puppy when he’s upset! I’m not going to do that to him—I’m not a _monster_ , Azula!”

  
“Well guess what? Ozai is, and he deserves to be punished for his crimes against us!” 

  
She wasn’t trying to be dramatic, but she thinks that it must be so deeply imbedded in her DNA that it’s impossible for her to not be.

  
“Look.” Azula said, sighing in exasperation. “Aang doesn’t want us to physically hurt him. That doesn’t mean we can’t at least fuck with him.”

  
“What would you suggest we do, then?” Zuko demanded. “Hang dead fish from the ceiling of his cell? Put pictures of him with painted mustaches on the walls? Give a dramatic reading of his childhood diary that I found in the library? Perform his favorite play in the most unholy way imaginable?”

  
“That sounds petty and awful.” Azula informed him solemnly. 

  
And so of course, they were doing all of those things, because they were absolutely petty and awful. 

  
Their old man taught them well.

  
The Water Tribe peasants—sorry, guests—happened to be visiting the palace that week, so Azula decided to ask one of them to go to the market and get them some fish.

  
“Why are you staring at me ominously from the doorway.” The boy—Sock, was it?—eyed her warily from his place at the desk. He looked to be in the middle of writing something down. _A letter? To who?_

  
(Azula couldn’t help being nosy. She knew it was rude, but it was always nice to know things about other people. It’s a habit from her time in court that she’ll never be able to kick. She’s not even sure she would ever want to.)

  
“To fuck with you.” She deadpanned. “Anyway, go get us some fish from the market. Me and Zuko need some.”

  
“What?” He scowled. “Don’t you have fish in the kitchens?”

  
“We ran out.” She said with a straight face. _Nah, I just find it really entertaining to fuck with you._

  
“You ran—this is a fucking island nation! How do you run out of fish?” Sock looked comically offended. It made Azula have to stifle a laugh.

  
“We have a lot of turtleducks, you know,” she said, shrugging, “and we can’t just feed them bread. That’s unhealthy.”

  
“Since when did you care about how healthy they are?” Sock flailed in his chair, white quill flashing in his right hand, catching the sunlight that poured through the window behind him.

  
“Are you advocating for animal abuse, Water Tribe?” Azula leaned against the doorframe, smirking at his frustration. “The Avatar would be so disappointed.”

  
“You—whatever. I’ll get your damn fish.” He grumbled irritably as he got up from his desk and moved to the door, snatching a grey fur bag from his bed on his way there.

  
Azula decided to visit Katara next. After all, she had been meaning to sit down and have lunch with the waterbender sometime, to discuss bending techniques.

  
(She was not going to tell Zuko she was doing that. He would get so smug when he realized she was taking his advice about studying bending from the other cultures.)

  
Azula checked the guest room the Water Tribe girl was supposed to be staying in and found it empty. Her face itched to scrunch up in confusion but she suppressed it on instinct. 

  
(Even if no one was around, it still felt like when her father was a free man. It still felt like he was watching her, judging her, testing her.)

  
When she ducked her head back into the hall, there was a serving girl bumbling through the corridor, towels draped across her arm.

  
“Ayame,” she began, internally wincing a the way the servant’s eyes widened and the way her breath stuttered. The servants where still getting used to who Azula was now. They kept looking like they expected her to smack them. “Did you happen to see where Miss Katara went? I have been meaning to speak to her.”

  
“Oh. Uhm, she told me she was headed to the turtleduck pond.” Ayame’s eyes darted away from hers, submissive. “Should I have stopped her?”

  
“No, no. You’re fine.” Azula hated this. Hated being reminded of what she’d done in the past. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  
Azula went on her way, retracing the familiar steps one had to take to reach the courtyard. She knew the path by heart. Not just because she had grown up exploring every inch of the palace, but because she had come here often, during her childhood, to watch Ursa sit with Zuko to feed the turtleducks together. 

  
(Azula had never been invited. She used to pretend not to care.)

  
(She used to set the turtleducks on fire, sad and confused and furious at the fact that they held more of her mother’s love than she did.)

  
When she reached the courtyard, her eyes were immediately drawn to the brunette that sat by the pond. She wore a bright blue outfit that matched her eyes.

  
(Blue always has been Azula’s favorite color. The color of her fire. But it wasn’t a Fire Nation color.)

  
Azula came forward to stand beside the other girl, watching the sunlight play on the rippling water of the pond.

  
“Katara,” she greeted diplomatically. “You seem to be enjoying the palace.”

  
Katara scowled, straightening up. “The palace is fine. It’s the heat that’s killing me! One of the maids told me this is a pretty cold day. I can’t believe you and Zuko are fine living like this!”

  
Azula coughed into her fist mockingly. “Well, we are firebenders.”

  
Katara flushed. “Oh. Right. Still, though...”

  
Azula grinned a bit self-consciously, tilting her head in the other girl’s direction. “So...you said something about having lunch together...?”

  
“Oh...right! You wanted to compare bending techniques?”

  
Azula ended up calling a maid over and requesting that she bring them a tray of food. By the end of their little meeting, they’d been sitting at the edge of the pond, eating and talking and feeding the occasional turtleduck that happened to pass by. 

  
“Did you really attack your waterbending master?” Azula’s voice was incredulous. “No offense, Katara, but you’re insane.”

  
“Well he was being a sexist asshole! Can you honestly say you would’ve put up with that?”

  
Azula tilted her head to the side. _Good point._

  
“You’re right, I suppose. I would’ve slit his throat.” Her eyes narrowed in thought. “That’s what Ozai would’ve done. And I did always try to mimic him back then...”

  
Katara winced slightly, cringing away from Azula in apparent uneasiness. 

  
“Well...okay. New topic! What have you and Zuko been up to? I mean, aside from all the boring political nonsense. I think I’ve had enough of that this month to last a lifetime.”

  
Azula frowned, wondering if her brother would mind if she told Katara of their plans.

  
She abruptly decided she didn’t care.

  
“We’re planning different ways to torture our father.”

  
“What?!” Katara exclaimed, eyes going wide and glittering in the midday sun like twin sapphires. “You—what? Didn’t you promise Aang you wouldn’t hurt him? You know, for moral reasons and all that?”

  
“Zuzu promised. I promised nothing.” She grinned a shark-like grin, but it dropped after a moment or two. “But no, in all seriousness, we aren’t really torturing him in the...traditional sense. Just annoying him. A lot.”

  
“Oh.” Katara didn’t seem to know what to say to that. She fumbled with her hands, straightening her skirt and beginning to stand up. “What...what are you guys planning on doing exactly?”

  
“Well...my dad has always hated when people performed his favorite play wrong. So we have decided to absolutely butcher it in front of him in hopes that it will rip away at his sanity.”

  
The look on Katara’s face was adorable. It made something weird and fluttery happen in Azula’s stomach. 

  
“Can I help?” She asked, like Azula had it in her to say no.


End file.
